Democracy or Republic: False Choice?

    Every once in a while, someone justifies that we shouldn't expect the political system to reflect the will of the people because we live in a republic, not a democracy.  Usually the line of reason goes something like this:
1.  We elect our leaders, not govern ourselves directly
2.  Rights could not exist in a democracy, because the will of the people would always defeat the individual
3.  We have a federal system, so we can't be a democracy
4.  I belong to the party that calls itself Republican, so republics must be good but I am fed up with the party that calls itself Democratic so democracy must be evil
5.  The founding fathers said you can't trust democracy, and they're right
    I think the easiest way to deal with these arguments is to first state what my definitions of "democracy' and "republic" are.  Democracy comes from the Greek word demokratia "people power."  Republic comes from the Latin phrase "res publica" or "from the people" sometimes translated "public affair."  These terms originated independently to describe systems of government where power comes from below.  The Roman Republic was often more conservative than the Athenian democracy, but the terms were not intended to be opposed.
    At the time of the U.S. founding, many of the founding fathers argued in favor of a republic and against what they called "pure democracy." By this they meant they supported what we now call representative democracy rather than what we now call direct democracy. Many of the founders also advocated substantial restrictions on voting rights, so the early republic was not democratic by modern standards because of that.
    However, other historical writers as well as the modern consensus do not fall into this trap. Montesquieu, for instance, divides republics between "aristocratic republics" and "democratic republics" based on the level of popular participation.  And in modern parlance representative democracies are divided between constitutional monarchies which posses some sort of ceremonial hereditary ruler, and republics, which do not. Therefore, a democratic republic is no contradiction in terms. Let;s build one in the USA.